


We Used to be Friends

by fivefootnothing



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivefootnothing/pseuds/fivefootnothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...because you're the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Used to be Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place right after the Big Finish audio "The Gathering". Mild spoilers.

You shutter the worn, wooden doors behind you, count out the number of steps from entrance to inner doors.

_(seven and a half, shortened down to three springy and probably desperate paces if running for one's life)_

You tick away the number of seconds as the inner doors thrum open.

_(three point nine-three-seven)_

No.

_(three point nine-three-eight-four)_

The power couplings need recalibrating. You add it to your to-do list, a list you'll never quite work through.

Everything order and precision and predictability and control.

_"You're dying."_

Four paces to the console. Three button clicks for coordinates.

_"There has to be something we can do."_

A solitary switch flip to dematerialize.

_"Come with me. Let me help you."_

This is why you never go back.

You don't experience the beginning. You belong in the very exact middle of danger. Taking the plunge, going for the escape.

Fixing things and moving on.

Fondness doesn't allow you to move on.

Fate intervenes and tosses the past at you, tests you, taunts you, offers you a predicament you think you cannot solve.

Yet you plead and you beg and, with your voice near-panicked and stammering, you promise your help. Your help has saved galaxies and vanquished gods. Cybermen, Daleks, Mara, and the Master. All met and matched and defeated.

But a single "no" from Tegan Jovanka ruins you.

You wither and you choke and you inwardly wonder if she hates you. If she always hated you. If she ever (as Michael suggested) loved you.

She refuses your aid, and then you see what you ought to have known. She's stronger than you. Bolder than you. She never needed platitudes and condolences. She never needed reminding of that bravery always waiting deep in her heart.

She's able to face the future because she's seen it.

It is beautiful and terrifying and unpredictable.

Like life.

Like death.

Seven button presses to reroute the coordinates.

Twenty-six steps from TARDIS to hospital entrance.

Eight levels to the correct floor.

Fifteen point nine-six-seven-three seconds from lift doors to room.

One frail head resting on a pillow and turning in your direction.

"Figures. You always did have rotten timing, Doctor."

You sigh wretchedly, pitch off some limp remark about her 'sunny disposition'. You apologize and you backpedal and your speech is filled with 'should haves' and 'ought tos' and 'if onlys'.

You don't linger. Because you're the Doctor and you always leave before the consequences rain all around you, leave before the questions start.

Leave before someone discovers the nanoscale device you've stashed beneath her bed.

Because you can't leave it alone, can't stop meddling.

Because you're the Doctor and she used to be your friend.


End file.
